Windows Forensic Environment ("WinFE")

WinFE was developed and researched in 2008 by Troy Larson, Sr Forensic Examiner and Research at Microsoft([1]. WinFE is based off the Windows Pre-installation Environment of media being Read Only by default.
It works similar to Linux forensic CDs that are configured not to mount media upon booting.
However, unlike Linux boot CDs, with Win FE one can use Windows based software. Thus it is possible to include various forensic software and general portable utilities.
WinFE can also be configured to boot from a USB device, should the evidence computer have the ability to boot to USB.

WinFE can be customized to the examiner's needs through batch files using the Windows Automated Install Kit (WAIK) or through 3rd party utilities such as WinBuilder ([2]).

Some examples of Windows based forensic utilities that can run in the Windows Forensic Environment include:

Technical Background and Forensic Soundness

Windows FE is based on the modification of just two entries in the Windows Registry.
The first key is located at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\ControlSet001\Services\MountMgr". The DWord "NoAutoMount" has to be set to "1".
By doing this the Mount-Manager service will not automatically mount any storage device.
The second key is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\ControlSet001\Services\partmgr\Parameters" where "SanPolicy" has to be set to "3".
While both keys will avoid the mounting of storage devices the user has to mount the storage drive manually by using the command-line tool DiskPart, while the evidence drive does not need to be mounted for imaging/forensic access.

Testing by various people of the forensic community has shown that by just mounting the volume no write access will happen on the evidentiary media. However by mounting the partition (even in read-only mode) some sort of writing may occur - depending on the type of filesystem (the potential modification is a documented 4-byte change to non-user created data ([8])such as the Linux/UNIX journaling filesystems like ext3/4 and zfs (compare to the similar issues with Linux Boot CDs [9] ). At present the most likely explanation for this effect lies in the writing of a "drive signature". In-depth testing is still ongoing.